Herman Cain not interested in U.S. Senate seat

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain tells The Daily Caller that he will not run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2014.

His name had been floated as a potential candidate to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who recently irritated conservatives by seeming to suggest he’s willing to break his pledge not to raise taxes.

“My attention will be on exposing the economic pain and suffering to come from a second Obama term, [rather] than on a decision Senator Chambliss made,” Cain said in an email provided to TheDC. “No, I’m not running!”

Erick Erickson, the influential radio talk show host in Georgia and editor of RedState.com, said Tuesday that he’s considering running against Chambliss in 2014. He’d offer himself as a more conservative alternative to the Republican senator.

Referencing Cain — who also has a talk show — Erickson also said on Tuesday: “Or maybe we should run Herman and maybe I can take his show next year?”

On his Tuesday show, Erickson said “for a week now, I’ve been getting calls to see if I would challenge Saxby Chambliss, once he really got into the whole raising taxes issue.”

The “whole raising taxes issue” Erickson is referencing are remarks made by Chambliss last week suggesting he would violate his pledge to not raise taxes. That pledge — produced by American for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist and signed by many Republican lawmakers — has become an issue on Capitol Hill as both parties work to avert the fiscal cliff crisis.

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” Chambliss said.

After conservatives criticized Chambliss, the senator later took to Twitter to clarify that, “I’m not in favor of tax increases.”